Are you getting more philanthropic as you get older?

[Gillstay]

Indeed.

I recently got a taxi, a black guy driving, nice old boy. He was telling me that morning he'd done a school run and the mum then asked to be driven home as well. He drover her back home, but she didn't have the money to pay for the return journey.

And he told me how he no longer works the lucrative Friday and Saturday nights because of the racial abuse he receives.

I felt sorry for him, a normal guy just trying to earn a crust and up against it at every turn so I tipped him a tenner. The auld feller was so pathetically grateful.

I did a favour to two tree surgeons who were always getting the monkey `jokes' to use the term loosely.
I asked them how often they got racial abuse and by staff or customers.

Answer `both and constantly'. The shrug they said it with made me feel very uncomfortable.

 

[cyberknight]

The opposite
In the past i have given stuff and time freely to help out and have been taken for a mug

 

[Gillstay]

I volunteer and collect litter and clear drains in the lanes around my home. I am wary of people just taking and taking if given the chance.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I take this was during the Covid toilet paper shortage, no way he got a tenner for it otherwise.

This time next year you know who will be marching all together, back to the championship!

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

Yup! It seems you accumulate stuff until you retire, then you realize the foolishness of it all and start trying to unload it all.

 

[BigSid]

No, but I have bought food for people who appear homeless. Never 100% sure they are but I became homeless when I was 18 and appreciated the help I got. I also never thought I'd grow up to be a grumpy old man but here I am, smashing it!

 

[NorthernSky]

i don't really give much away but i am not trying to accumulate stuff anymore. we've been looking at moving house and were looking at biggish houses, but the more i think about it i don't want it. i would just be trying to fill the extra space with stuff. having lots of stuff brings it's own problems. there's definitely something in the saying 'the more you have the more you have to lose'.

 

[screenman]

i don't really give much away but i am not trying to accumulate stuff anymore. we've been looking at moving house and were looking at biggish houses, but the more i think about it i don't want it. i would just be trying to fill the extra space with stuff. having lots of stuff brings it's own problems. there's definitely something in the saying 'the more you have the more you have to lose'.

Or rubbish accumulates to fill the space available.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

As I get older I find I am increasingly donating methane to others. I hope they can make use of it.

 

[postman]

I thought i was volunteering and all that.Except on Sunday i was just leaving a restaurant when i was approached by a guy in a wheel chair,out came his story.Homeless his tent stolen from his patch.Social won't give him money because he has no address.He can get in some where which will give him an address so he can claim money but only has forty mins left to register,he needs £22-50.I reply sorry i have no cash.there is a cash machine came his reply.That ended the meeting.So i am sitting outside Costa when guess what he is being pushed back in his chair by a young student.A little talk and the kid gets out his wallet and paper money goes straight under this guys jumper.Kid walks off looking a bit down in my opinion.The homeless guy takes off his wollen cap wipes his hair and goes to Rudy's a pizza place,and starts his talk again with a customer over a barrier.He was given short shift.I don't give now too many seem to be pros.Sorry if that upsets some.

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

I thought i was volunteering and all that.Except on Sunday i was just leaving a restaurant when i was approached by a guy in a wheel chair,out came his story.Homeless his tent stolen from his patch.Social won't give him money because he has no address.He can get in some where which will give him an address so he can claim money but only has forty mins left to register,he needs £22-50.I reply sorry i have no cash.there is a cash machine came his reply.That ended the meeting.So i am sitting outside Costa when guess what he is being pushed back in his chair by a young student.A little talk and the kid gets out his wallet and paper money goes straight under this guys jumper.Kid walks off looking a bit down in my opinion.The homeless guy takes off his wollen cap wipes his hair and goes to Rudy's a pizza place,and starts his talk again with a customer over a barrier.He was given short shift.I don't give now too many seem to be pros.Sorry if that upsets some.

I head out into town quite early in the morning on my longer runs and often see a van being driven round all the usual begging points dropping off people, usually lone female, to set up for the day before the great unwashed get out their pits and see what is going on. Much later the same van has been seen going around picking them up again. It’s obviously being run as a business and many of the locals know so don’t give them anything but they get good income from tourists.

 

[Drago]

Many are pros. I offer to buy them a cup of tea and a pack of sarnies - those that get arsey are pros or junkies.

 

[Mike Ayling]

I thought i was volunteering and all that.Except on Sunday i was just leaving a restaurant when i was approached by a guy in a wheel chair,out came his story.Homeless his tent stolen from his patch.Social won't give him money because he has no address.He can get in some where which will give him an address so he can claim money but only has forty mins left to register,he needs £22-50.I reply sorry i have no cash.there is a cash machine came his reply.That ended the meeting.So i am sitting outside Costa when guess what he is being pushed back in his chair by a young student.A little talk and the kid gets out his wallet and paper money goes straight under this guys jumper.Kid walks off looking a bit down in my opinion.The homeless guy takes off his wollen cap wipes his hair and goes to Rudy's a pizza place,and starts his talk again with a customer over a barrier.He was given short shift.I don't give now too many seem to be pros.Sorry if that upsets some.

What kind of business is a Costa?

 

[Andy in Germany]

What kind of business is a Costa?

Coffee, similar to Starbucks.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I head out into town quite early in the morning on my longer runs and often see a van being driven round all the usual begging points dropping off people, usually lone female, to set up for the day before the great unwashed get out their pits and see what is going on. Much later the same van has been seen going around picking them up again. It’s obviously being run as a business and many of the locals know so don’t give them anything but they get good income from tourists.

No surprise. It used to be a favourite of traffickers, I don't know if that's still the case. Either way the individuals don't get to keep much.